A Woman from Gaza
Written By: Megan Straughan
November 2009

 

We pull up to an empty parking lot adjacent to a building resembling an airport terminal. "So this is what the Gaza-Israel border looks like," I think to myself. The area is deserted save a group of men gathered on benches in the shade. A woman sits on the curb about ten meters from the men, alone and in the sun.

"Mishahu meidaber evrit po (Does anyone here speak Hebrew)?" asks Will, a weekly volunteer for Save a Child's Heart (SACH)¹ who spends each Tuesday driving student volunteers from Medical School for International Health (MSIH) to the border to accompany children to Wolfson Hospital in Holon, Israel. A man in the crowd responds in fluent Hebrew before reverting to his native Arabic to motion the woman with her child to come with us. She gets up quickly and runs hurriedly towards us. We exchange smiles. I greet her in broken Arabic. She returns the greeting and then excitedly speaks to me in Arabic. I am forced to confess in slightly less broken Hebrew that I have used up all the Arabic words I know. We then all pile into the car; the men upfront, and the women in back. My gender affords me the opportunity to play with her 2 and a half year old daughter, Saba, and to speak with her. I ask her what time she left her house.

"6 am," she says. I check my watch. It's almost noon.
"I'm tired," she says, smiling. I can see her exhaustion on her face. She must be roughly forty years old.
I ask about her family and discover she has seven children, four girls and three boys. Saba is the youngest. Her eldest daughter is in university. She can't find the English word for her daughter's major. She makes a motion that looks like someone drawing blood or giving a shot.
"Nursing school?" I guess to myself.
She tells me that she's also in university.
"What do you study?" I ask.
She thinks for a second, trying to find the word in English. She holds up her hands and mimics someone typing.
"Computers," I offer.
"Yes," she says.

I find out that she's in her third year of a four year degree.

"I also work," she says proudly.
"What do you do?" I ask.
"I watch children," she says.
"How old are the children?"
"They are 5 years old."
"Wow! You're a busy woman," I say, stating the obvious.
"Yes," she responds, nodding enthusiastically.

"It's beautiful," she says, looking out the window with amazement.

A Young girl in Hebron peeks out of her doorway.

"Yeah, it is," I say as I look at the fields of flowers in full bloom.
"Is this your first time in Israel?" I ask.
"Yes," she says, as she turns her head to look at the scenery out both windows.
"What is the name of this place?" she asks.
"Ashekelon," I reply as I point out the window.
"Ashekelon," she repeats to herself, trying to commit it to memory.
"Over there is Ashdod," I offer.
"Ashdod," she says to herself.

I want to ask her about her experience during the war but I can't.

"I've heard the beaches are beautiful in Gaza," I say.
"Yes," she says smiling. "They are."
"Are there many people on the beaches? Are they crowded?" I ask.
"No, no, they aren't crowded," she says quietly.

I am afraid that this answer might be in reference to the fact that the beaches haven't been crowded since the end of the war. I don't ask for clarification.

"It's beautiful," she says again, looking around.
"Does it look like Gaza?" I ask.
"No, no. Different. Gaza is beautiful too."

Watching passerbys in Hebron.

"I've heard there are many buildings next to each other in Gaza," I say, using my hands to make imaginary buildings next to each other.
"Yes," she says instinctively in Arabic, as she nods her head knowingly.
I smile. "She's sleeping," she says pointing to Saba who's sleeping soundly on her mother's lap.

I ask her about her brothers and sisters. I find out that she is the 5th child of 8. She then begins to tell me about her eldest sister who got married in Libya. She hasn't seen her in fifteen years. I ask her if she misses her sister. She doesn't understand me, and I withdraw my question. "What a stupid question. Of course she does," I think to myself.

"She called me everyday during the war," she states.
The war. She has broached the subject. The war. The war that occurred just four months ago. "Was anyone in her family hurt? Was her home destroyed? What did she see? What did she experience? Did she lose close friends? What has life been like for her since the war?"

I think all of these questions but ask nothing. The word 'war' hangs in the air for a few milliseconds. It feels like years.

"I'm sure she was very worried about you and your family."
"Yes."

We sit in silence for a minute or two.

"My husband and I, we went to Egypt twice. But this, this is my first time alone," she says as she pulls on her hijab.

Police in Hebron.

"No need to worry," I say as I give her a reassuring pat.

She nods as she squeezes her daughter more tightly and kisses the top of her head.

A child on the rooftops of Hebron

"Wow," I think to myself. "Here's a woman, roughly forty, alone for the first time in a country she's never been to-though she lives less than a couple miles from it-and she's surrounded by people who don't speak her native language. She's been up since 6 am, spent two hours trying to negotiate a closed border full of politics on both sides, and now she is in a car full of strangers from North America and headed to a hospital to diagnose her two year old daughter's heart condition. And she's late. Her appointment was for 10 am, but here it is already 12:15, and we're still twenty minutes from the hospital. Wow."

"Don't worry about the time. They know you're on your way. They will wait for you," I say. She nods but I can tell she is still worried.

"How far to the hospital?" she asks.
I point to the city that we're approaching, "This is Holon. We're almost there. Five minutes," I say holding up my hand. She nods.

We go through hospital security and then walk up to the cardiology ward. We are met by several families from the West Bank who are waiting for their children's check-ups. It is Palestinian Clinic Day at SACH. These children from the Palestinian Authority Police in Hebron. (PA) are seeking treatment in Israel because not only is the type of heart surgery they require not available in their hometowns but there is also a lack of pediatric cardiologists in parts of the PA to diagnose the children's conditions. Indeed, most of the children treated free of charge by SACH have congenital heart defects that are not seen in developed countries because the defects would have been repaired immediately after birth. It is the collaboration that exists between the Palestinian doctors and the Israeli doctors that enable the children to receive the lifesaving care they need.

The SACH staff welcomes Saba and her mother, and Saba gives the nurse a hug. Her mom combs her short brown hair for her pictures. She then goes to be seen and have her echo. Her mother sits quietly while her daughter's heart is project on the screen. The doctor works quickly trying to finish the echo before Saba wakes up from the anesthesia. The doctor explains to us that Saba has an atrioventricular (AV) canal defect, which is common for children with Down's Syndrome. She worries that Saba may have pulmonary hypertension which, if it is too severe, would prevent Saba from having the open heart surgery she needs to close the hole. Saba is going to have a catheterization to decide if surgery is possible. The doctor and a translator sit down with Saba and her mother to discuss the situation. She wants to hear Saba's history and what has kept her from seeking treatment sooner.

A backyard view in Hebron.

We are whisked away to pick up another volunteer and visit the pediatric ICU. We wave goodbye to Saba and her mother. A couple hours pass, and we see them coming to the children's ward. They are going to hospitalize Saba so that she can be sure to get her catheterization within the week and forgo the uncertainty at the border crossing. Indeed, the last time Saba attempted to cross, she was turned away. The border is officially closed, and thus, both sides must agree to allow the children and their parents to pass. Today, out of the nine children who attempted to cross only Saba and another child scheduled for surgery were successful.

It is almost 4 pm, and they are just about to start the process of admitting Saba to the hospital-she is hyperactive from all the medicine and talking up a storm. Her mother slumps into the chair but she fights through her tiredness and smiles. I ask Yasmin, the translator who speaks fluent Arabic, Hebrew and English, how she is doing, hoping to skirt around the topic of the war once more.

"You see. She is here. She survived. She was telling me about her friend who lost her entire family in the war. Everyone was affected psychologically." I nod, not knowing how else to respond.

Before I can ask another question, a nurse comes up to start the in-take and we have to catch a bus back home. We say our final goodbyes. Saba smiles and gives us a wave. I meet her mother's eyes and smile. She smiles back. As I walk down the corridor, I hope that I might have helped her feel less scared about being in a foreign world. I am grateful to her for sharing her story with a total stranger. I think of her holding Saba, and as I leave the hospital, I am hopeful that Saba can become another success story of the SACH program.

Megan Straughan is a first year medical student at the Medical School for International Health, in Be'er Sheva, Israel. She writes based on her personal experience with the international organization, Save a Child's Heart. She can be contacted at straugha@ bgu.ac.il. Names in this article were changed to protect privacy. Hebron is a city in the West Bank.